yes so i know i have been MIA this Summer and it is kinda rude to just come back to my readers to ask you for a favor....
but alas, we really want to win Season passes to our local water park so I BEG OF YOU....
Please swing by this website and vote for Kensey's pic!!! Just click on the above pic with the umbrella and it will take you the link to vote for this picture....

YES! I am here! I am here!
I have been EXTREMELY busy the last few months ( has it been months?! ) that I have not had the chance to sit down and type out my thoughts!
I have my little brothers wedding next week and then vacationing in OH and then another wedding for a close friend in MN... whew! Lots of traveling.. OH YEAH! Kensey is going to be a cheerleader! We are registering her tomorrow! Super excited to get her involved in something - it has been a long time...
Well to leave you with a pic - because I probably won't be posting until July -
this was actually taken.. oh about a month ago - we were outside playing and i got this on my phone! Every time I look at it I hear "Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul" hymn

today my little girl turns 8... EIGHT!!!!
the years have just flown by, although rough at times - I would not have her any other way!
we are celebrating today with birthday pancakes ( as requested ) and our close friends over for dinner ... if they can get here, they may have to use a boat!

this saturday we are having a backyard carnival for K and her friends - I am hoping that the mudslide in the backyard will have dried by then because I DO NOT have room in this house for a carnival party! i still have a few more things to make and get for the party but all in all I think my homemade decorations trump anything Party City can dish out!

i just love this chalkboard wall! it is like a HUGE card that I can customize for any occasion!

whew! it has been a LONG couple of weeks! first tornadoes then floods!
i am happy to say that the house on the hill is STILL here :)
just to fill you in if you are not in the area....

Tornado that hit the LRAFB ( we live about a mile from there - the tornado formed over where we live and then hit close to home... a little to close - prayers go out to those who suffered damage from this tornado!

flooding in Jacksonville - this morning it took me about an hour to get K to school and then they let the kids out early - good thing I decided to visit a friend nearby the school or else I would have spent a total of 2.5 hours traveling! we literally have ONE road to get out and about - that road is going to flood soon though if this rain keeps up!

did you know i sing? well i do! this is something that has been a passion of mine since i was a little girl :)

i would love to share our tunes with you! check out birdy&friends and if you like us - just grab our button above and share it on your own blog! please note that i am by no means a skilled guitar player nor do i have the best of recording equipment - in fact it is just my computer mic so turn your speakers up to listen - i hope you enjoy! also there are a few "tweaks" in the songs that we will work on when get to record "for real" - listen for them! it will be fun to see if you can hear them HA!

Also, if you sing and want to sing a song with me.... let me know! I think it would be so much fun and hence the "& friends"

i am thinking that i may start dedicating certain months to certain activities... like jan-march will be craft months, apr-june will be photography months, july-sept will be sewing months and oct - dec will be baking/cooking months.... i just get overwhelmed b/c i want to do it all in the same month!!! is there a simple solution to this? i don't know if i could ONLY do photography for 3 months and etc.... lol

so... for those of you who follow my little blog I feel the need to explain my absence!
I have been overwhelmingly busy busy busy with my photography business, which is a GOOD thing... but it has kept me away from my personal life for the past few weeks. I was a photographer for a local fundraiser a little over a week ago and had a few other sessions in between here and there and that is what is taking up the majority of my time lol. I was hoping to have this week to just sit and relax, catch up on some crafts that I have been wanting to try and get some MAJOR Spring cleaning done but alas, I am still editing images! I am just about caught up on all my sneak peeks though! If you want to see what I have been up to check me out at Birdy Photography!
I have also been very involved in my church's Worship Team lately and I am LOVING it!!! We have a big Easter line up and I have a busy busy week of practice! If you are looking for a church service this Easter check out ThatChurch - in Sherwood and Conway AND if you are in Medina TN, we have just opened up a campus there!!! I promise you will want to come back again and again to be filled with our God's love! This church is like no other I have ever been to and I feel so fulfilled with God's word every time I enter those doors! I really hope you can make it!
Well that's all folks! Trust me... I have TONS more to talk about but just not enough time!!! I will be back on this hill soon once all my editing is done! I am taking a break from my business work and planning K's 8th birthday party (?????!!!!!! WHAT?????!!!!) for the 7th of May and then will return!

Ok so I must admit... i did not really think this whole "picture a day" thing - i am so TIRED of shooting a shot EVERY single day. Before this project it was not an issue but now that I know I have to get it done, it has become a chore! My friend Lynsey said that when something is no longer fun and becomes a chore that is when you should stop and I totally agree! THIS will be my last "photo a day" collage - from now on I am just going to put together whatever I managed to shoot that week... that way there is no obligation to get all 7 images IN ORDER on a collage by the end of the week! I still want to achieve my initial goal of a photo book per year - it just may be missing a few shots from every single day!!!
Is anyone else out there doing a 365 and having the same feelings?!

So if you were wondering why "house on the hill"....?
told ya so! it feels like you are taking off in a rocket ship just going into the garage! Lord help us when we sell this place!
With Spring upon us, we were all out in the yard all day yesterday trying to get things to look half way decent. We have a yard full of weeds so that is going to be something we tackle hopefully this year - I am not so sure how we will do it considering the yard ( front/back ) is full of rock. We did manage to tend to the flower bed in the front yard and planted some new annuals as well as got rid of the weeds quickly sneaking up on our perennials planted last year!. I got a new rug for my front door for my birthday from Target... LOVE the red and love that it goes so well with my door. I also made a spring wreath that seems to be "all the hype" on facebook right now lol - fabric flowers have been a big hit and I cannot even begin to tell you how simple they are to make!!!! My friend Lynsey and I sat down today and whipped up 3 wreaths for her home ( jealous of all her doors ).
All of these images were taken with my phone, which btw takes some awesome pics!

and of course the whole inspiration for getting out and tending to my own yard... The Tafoya's backyard - K just loves playing over there. The grass is so green and soft and Lynsey has done an awesome job with her own garden... not to mention they have some awesome pets ( not that i would ever hold one )

i love to go down to the end of my drive and see what the mailman has brought for me today! sometimes it is just junk or the red plum and sometimes.... it is a special gift!!!
since i have been doing this Great Create, every month ( toward the end ) i get so anxious waiting to check the mail! K is the same way - even though we are only 3 months in, she has put together that the craft ( gift ) will come at the end of the month. she asks me first thing after school if her Great Create swapper sent anything! she was thrilled when she received this adorable headband...

*and i had to get a close up of those lashes :) i adore how subtle and soft they are!*

I need to take a proper picture of the special surprise that K's swappers Mama snuck into the package for me ( and i was not even assigned to her ! ) i was super thrilled to get it but since it is a camera strap cover, i have not had the chance to take a pic of it b/c i have been USING it! So until I get a pic of it, here is her awesome etsy site The Pink Pooka ( love the name! )so you can see some of the other cool straps she made!

then today... my little brother and his sweet girlfriend ( whom i am hoping becomes his wife b/c i really like her a lot... hint hint.. wink wink...) sent us some goodies! now the package had a hilarious sketch on it as you can see below. i have NO idea where the "Herro Kitty" thing came from but Tom and Zachary have been tossing that saying around to each other for years and I still don't know what it means....? they sent K and I some pretty bling and Tom got some random "man things"... I LOVE my bracelet and have been wanting one like that for awhile and K loves her cross necklace and ring!

the bible verse says

Psalms 91:11-12, "For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

speaking of gifts/giving... i have so many ideas and things i want to make/buy for my friends/family - i constantly see things that i could make for a particular person or something in the store will grab my eye and i will instantly think of someone in my life - oh how i wish i had all the time in the world to make gifts for people or all the money in the world to just buy them the things that would be so perfect for them! i know that these are just "things" and they are material to the world and not to our after life but it is fun to get things but I think that i have much more fun giving things to people lol. so if you are a close personal friend or family member please please know that i often think of you and WANT to make/buy you stuff - i just have to find the time to do it!!!! i think that when i sit down to make my Great Create gifts each month, I am also going to dedicate one month to a friend/family member - i am going to make a list and pull names out of a hat at random... SO if you receive a gift FIRST - please don't rub it in to the others - ;)

for those of you who are not aware... i am a photographer by trade - on my photo blog I am hosting Birdy's Big Give Away and have some awesome vendors that have donated some AMAZING items for the winners! swing by and check it out!!!!

I find inspiration EVERYWHERE! It can be from a piece of trash blowing around in the wind to a masterpiece created by a well known artist! I was thrilled when I found Pinterest via the net! This website is AMAZING! No longer do I have to hoard away links and images that I fall in love with onto my hard drive! I can simply drag and pin the image straight from the source to look upon later! I am so happy to see inspiration popping up everywhere I turn... I think that finally this generation is using the Internet, gaming systems, smart phones and music to inspire greatness! For so long I was worried that Kensey, growing up in a generation that would rather sit on the couch and watch some toons or spend hours on the computer in chat rooms or use amazing graphic designing talent to create bloody and horrific games, would fall into the "zone" and become a zombied out teen with lack of interest for anything productive.

I tried to instill as much art and music in my daughters life as I can because I feel that these things are the root of imagination and creative being. I am thrilled to see her find joy from something as little as a broken crayon or in the way that a leaf is laying on the ground. If you visit our home, you will quickly discover that we support her artistic nature... I am not just talking pictures on the fridge yall... my walls are covered with Kensey's artwork - where photos once hung, there are now scraps of paper with sketches, stories, poems on them. You would think with myself being a photographer, I would have tons of photos hanging on my walls as well as huge canvases of my images displayed for all to see - that is just not the case - i would rather hang a painted self portrait from Kensey on my wall than our family photos. I just love the world through her eyes and it makes me smile to see her creations adorning our walls. You may remember our chalk board wall? Well that was put there for Kensey - she goes through so much paper in one day - and with me trying to be a greenie that was just not happening! You can only color/draw/write on one piece of paper so many times right? The chalkboard wall serves its purpose - I love to see what she comes up with next! Our original plan was to not wipe the wall off during the whole month and then take a picture at the end of the month before we wiped it off... but K just does not have time for that - she fills the wall up before the week is over! I like to think that when she looks back on her childhood, she will feel that she had no boundaries when it came to her creative outlets. I like to think that this time of her life, when creativity and inspiration are most important, that she would not have felt hindered in any way. And so... with that being said, my walls will be covered for many years to come, I will continue to find little stories and sketches shoved behind the couch cushions, in between pages of books and chalk dust will just have to be a part of our every day air...

check out my pinterest here - I will be letting K have her own album very soon! i cannot wait to see what all she pins!

i was just telling my friend lynsey today how i wanted to write a song and record for my photography website, i wanted something that would represent how fun photography is to me but i was having the hardest time thinking of anything.
on the way home from her house i just started humming this little tune in my head and when i got home i sat down and wrote a song ( for my Kensey ) in 15 min! i taught it to K when she got home and she loved it - thought that i had heard it somewhere and wanted to learn it lol - at the end i told her that i wrote it for her... her response could not have been sweeter!
it is a bit rough, as it was recorded via my computer microphone but i have a friend that has all the fancy stuff and cannot wait to record it 'for real' with kensey - and lynsey on harmony!!!
take a listen and let me know what you think!

ok so let me just start this post by saying that I think ticks are the most disgusting things! give me spiders, slugs, snakes, roaches, you name it... but DON'T let me find a tick anywhere near me or my family!!!!
i forget that being in the south, i am bound to cross a tick or two... so when we found a few on Winston AND the cat... well, i was not so shocked BUT don't think it still did not give me a case of the heebie geebies and throw me into a 'crawling all over my body ( mostly my hair ) scratching fit'. In fact, as I type this I am scratching my head... AAAAAHHHHH - i check K every night after her shower and Tom and I check each other in fear of DA DA DUM .... A TICK!
yesterday we stocked up on flea/tick drops ( al naturel and smells like cloves! ) for the cat and dog and also some tick shampoo for Winston... doesn't he look just pitiful?!
after all the rain ceases and tom tends to the yard, we are going to find something to border our yard and keep those nasty things out! anyone know of a natural remedy to put around the yard that won't harm pets/kids? i am really not comfortable with the whole 7 dust thing.

yesterday was spent making fun things for my Little Rock Mommies photo fundraiser that was supposed to take place tomorrow, however, due to Spring, "springing backward" ( weather ) we have to postpone it. we did get a lot done though and fun doing it! stephie taught K how to make origami cranes, which you will see down the post that I cannot make... neither will attempt! Steph made me a whole bunch of them for a mobile!!! I wub her!

this is our homemade kite! is it not just adorable! thanks to Jennifer my neighbor for the funnies!

K loves her some "Eggs in a Nest"! Basically you cut a hole, or in this case a heart, out of the bread and whisk up some egg and milk to pour into the hole while it cooks! This is a great tradition passed down from a childhood friend when I was growing up in El Paso - Maggie, I am gonna tag you in this! Bet you did not know that this was a HUGE hit in my book!!!!

oh yes.... let me explain this face - K decided to play with make up today, not that I am an expert but I must teach her how to apply it!!!

lovelies from Oliver's! I just love me some Oliver's and snagged this vintage quilt for just 25.00!!! I cannot wait to use in my photo sessions!

our mess - and this was after we cleaned up! the number 5 is for a client's session - hope she likes it!

my corner

hi yall! my name is jessica but mostly jess and i started this blog to document our journey in our first home. well not our first home but the first home we have bought. life is not easy but with the good lord and great family and friends, it can be a dream!